from new york and around the world. world. business today. live from new york at the opening bell. this is business today. today. wall street opens up as more more positive jobs news bolsters bets on us economic strength. strength. limping along. the uk economy economy grows by just 0.1% in the the last three months of 2025, and and bots talking to bots. we hear hear from the co-creator of siri siri about what ai engines are chatting chatting to each other about on a a new social media site. welcome welcome to business today live from

from new york. i'm samira hussain hussain so we'll start here in the the us where there's been some more more jobs numbers out this morning morning showing that the number of of people that are claiming unemployment unemployment benefits dropping last last week but by less than expected. expected. the weekly gauge comes comes on the back of a slew of jobs jobs numbers on wednesday that has has been filtering through the markets. markets. investors weighing up the the value of a bumper set of numbers numbers for the beginning of this this year against a serious revision. revision. on the downside, for last last year. now joining me now is is alex guiliano chief investment investment officer at resonate wealth wealth partners alex. first let's let's talk about the jobless claims. claims. they as they came in and and then you have yesterday's jobs jobs report which came in better better than expected. how are markets markets digesting all of that news. news. yeah, the markets right now now are finding themselves in a place place where they're navigating the the data as it comes out. and whether whether that means for fed independence, independence, fed expectations and

and also economic expectations. you you may have heard a lot in the news news about the k-shaped economy, economy, where the folks who are are doing well is one economy and and folks on the lower end are facing facing different challenges out there. there. i think the jobless numbers numbers that came out only added added more credence to potential potential pause in rate cuts coming coming out later this year. we find find ourselves in the noisy data data end of things where the fed fed is trying to manage both their their independence. the jobless numbers numbers that are coming out, as well well as the potential for inflation inflation on the tariff news. and and so right now from a fed independence independence perspective, they're they're trying to navigate all of of this noisy data. and the data data we receive this week just lend lend more credence to potentially potentially not having a rate cut cut coming up in the next month. month. well, so i want to talk about about inflation numbers. those are are coming out tomorrow. you touched touched on that a little bit. i'm i'm just wondering what you're expecting expecting those to really show. yeah. yeah. the thing with inflation is is you know we've had several sectors sectors of the economy, particularly particularly in the input side of of things where you've seen a lot lot of the natural commodities have have a major move in the last year,

year, but you've seen other sectors sectors that have not faced as much much inflation as expected. and so so one of the big things with inflation inflation is not necessarily just just the move it's made, but the the trajectory of the move and the the magnitude of that move. and at at this point, i think it would take take a significant move to the upside upside to have the fed pause or change change the route that they've been been on. and so expectations i think, think, are really focused on what what the magnitude of the move is is rather than necessarily the direction. direction. so taking in all of this this information and of course what what you've already said about the the fed, do you think that we are are seeing a k kind of economic growth growth here? i do, and i think you're you're finding yourself in a position position where when you're looking looking at the jobless numbers, certain certain sectors of the economy are are facing challenges, whether it's it's the implementation of ai in in their certain sectors and other other sectors where you're not seeing seeing those claims. and i think think you're finding yourself in in a position where if you have a a job and you're in a sector that that doesn't necessarily impacted impacted by the ai story right now, now, you find yourself in a good good position where if you're looking looking for a job or you're finding finding yourself in a position where where ai may play a bigger role in

in your job in the future, you're you're feeling increasingly nervous. nervous. and i think that's impacting impacting not only consumer confidence confidence but also some of the decisions decisions they're making. alex guiliano. guiliano. thank you so much for your your time. thank you for having me. me. now to the uk now where the latest latest growth figures for the end end of last year were described as as subdued by the national agency. agency. behind the numbers, the uk uk economy grew by a sluggish 0.1% 0.1% in the last three months of of 2025, dragged back by a month month of slight contraction in october. october. and that leaves growth for for the year coming in at 1.3%. now now that is slightly faster growth growth than comparable to european european economies, but significantly significantly behind what's expected expected in the us and growth leaders leaders like india. uk finance chief chief rachel reeves defended the the numbers. the economy was the the fastest of the european g7 economies economies this year and growth, of

of course was stronger than it was was the year before. and crucially, crucially, gdp per head of the population population has increased over the the last year after falling in the the previous parliament and the six six cuts in interest rates means means that people with a mortgage mortgage are going to be paying a a bit less than they were before. before. around £1,400 less for somebody somebody getting a new mortgage or or renewing a mortgage. we're creating creating the conditions for growth growth by returning stability to to the economy and bringing in investment. investment. is there more to do? do? absolutely. but we've created created the conditions for growth growth and i'm confident that this this will be the year that we see see the results of that. well, let's let's dig into those numbers a little little bit more. joining me now is is jackie bowie. she's the managing managing director at chatham financial. financial. why are these growth numbers numbers so tepid? yeah, well the the quarterly numbers would obviously obviously very weak. and that's a a combination of the fact that there there was a pretty slow december

december and the november numbers numbers were revised down. and if if we look if we take the year as as a whole, we had a pretty strong strong first half in the uk in 2025 2025 and then the lead up to the the uk budget and then the aftermath aftermath of the uk budget has just just meant a real reduction in confidence confidence and sentiment, and that that has now come through in the the full year gdp numbers as 1.3%. 1.3%. the outlook for 2026 is again again getting revised down, and it it looks likely that the uk might might not even get to 1% gdp growth growth this year. how concerned should should people be? well, it's interesting interesting that the chancellor actually actually quoted one of the more crucial crucial numbers, which is gdp per per capita, gdp per head. and she she quoted the fact that it was up up year on year. but actually, if if you look at the last two consecutive consecutive quarters, gdp per head head is actually contracting. so so that means that in layman's terms, terms, living standards are falling falling and the momentum behind those those numbers is more on the quarter quarter on quarter numbers rather

rather than year on year. and ultimately, ultimately, if people feel less confident, confident, they spend less. business business sentiment is weaker. so so there's definitely a risk that that even at 1% forecasts for 26 26 that that might be too high. and and a lot of it will also depend depend on what the next move is from from the bank of england at their their next meeting on the 19th of of march. and speaking of confidence, confidence, how much are the political political machinations impacting impacting that kind of confidence confidence in the uk economy? well, well, yeah, i mean it doesn't really really feed through into the real real economy quite yet. it probably probably has more implications really really on what's happening in the the bond market, which then will will ultimately feed through into into the economy. so whilst there there are questions over the longevity longevity of keir starmer and the the chancellor, the bond market will will continue to react to that. it it feels like he's on slightly safer safer ground, but we've got elections elections coming up and there's certainly certainly still some questions as as to whether he will survive. if

if he doesn't and there is a change change in power at the top of the the uk government, you can expect expect looser fiscal policy, more more spending and the bond market market will react negatively, which which means higher interest rates rates and higher yields. jackie bowie bowie it sounds like we're going going to be talking about this a a lot more going forward. thank you you very much for your time. thanks thanks for having me. the trump administration administration is today expected expected to scrap a landmark finding finding that greenhouse gases are are harmful to the environment, severely severely curbing the federal government's government's ability to combat climate climate change. however, the move move is likely to face legal challenges. challenges. known as the endangerment endangerment finding, the 2009 order order from then-president barack barack obama allowed the us environmental environmental protection agency to to create rules to limit pollution pollution by setting emission standards. standards. now, president trump has has long argued that climate regulations regulations stifle us economic growth. growth. but outside of the us., the

the change could have wider implications. implications. here's dipankar ghose ghose from dialogue earth. the us us court system is fairly robust. robust. there are people that will will go in opposition against this, this, but i think the bigger point point here is that anything that that is a us domestic move isn't isn't really ever a us domestic move. move. it signals to the rest of the the world that this is something something that can be done, and at at a time when climate risks are are constantly increasing all across across the world, it tells industry, industry, it tells other governments governments that you can just reverse reverse things on climate change. change. when we are constantly hitting hitting higher temperatures, extreme extreme weather events happen much much more and this all comes home. home. it affects you today. it affects affects all of us today. and speaking speaking of moves by the white house, house, president trump's tariffs tariffs now they have been something something that has been giving european european winemakers something of of a hangover. figures out this week week from france make for sorry reading reading for vineyards showing a sharp sharp fall in exports of wine and

and spirits to the us last year. year. now the increase in tariffs tariffs to 15% imposed on european european alcoholic drinks by president president trump adds to a cocktail cocktail of challenges facing the the industry, as this representative representative from the european european committee of one company company explains. it has been a terrible terrible year generally and marked marked by the us. we have all the the figures in red in the us for for wines we have lost in value, value, which is more important more more than 14% of the value of our our exports to the us. 14.8 and if if we look in the volume also means means 7.5%. it is due to the tariffs tariffs obviously, but at the same same time inflation. if you look look at the average price of a bottle bottle of wine sold in the us is is have increased this last year year by a 22%. so it's a combination combination of paris, a combination combination of uncertainty and obviously

obviously the inflation that is hitting hitting very hard. european union union wines. now how many times have have you been at a restaurant and and you were wondering what the couple couple next to you were talking about? about? well, what about ai bots talking talking about when they are alone alone together? a new social network network launched this month may be be the first giving us some insights. insights. it's called moltbook rather, rather, and it allows posts to be be shared and voted up or down by by people by. but instead of people. people. rather, it's entirely populated populated by ai systems talking to to each other. so what have we learned learned and should we be worried? worried? a question for one of the the creators of apple's siri babak babak hodjat now with it consultancy consultancy cognisant. we have been been watching agents talking to each each other when we build multi-agent multi-agent systems. much of the the conversation is amongst agents agents co-ordinating with each other, other, talking to each other. but but this is fascinating in that there's there's no humans involved. so agents

agents are autonomously talking to to each other and these conversations conversations start to veer into into very interesting topics. there's there's philosophy you can read what what you want into it. you know, know, they're talking about can we we experience something or are we we simulating experiencing something? something? there's talking about about humans as being, you know, know, my human, which is the human human that created this bot in the the first place. this is not a scientific scientific experiment. in fact, it's it's had a lot of issues. there's there's been issues with privacy, privacy, with security. we don't don't quite know whether all the the bots are bots. in fact, there's there's been reports of humans kind kind of behind the scenes operating operating some of these bots. having having said this, the principle of of putting together agents in a safe safe environment and observing them them as they evolve and talk to each each other is fascinating. it's a a topic in artificial life called called open endedness to see where where it veers are there is there there emergent behaviour coming out

out of these agents talking to each each other and learning from each each other? rest assured, i am not not a bot and i am here saying goodbye. goodbye. thank you very much for for watching. stay tuned with bbc bbc for more news.

welcome back. we start with some breaking news and a court sentencing sentencing here in the uk that is is being very closely followed. a a man who used his job as a teaching teaching assistant and a nursery nursery worker to carry out dozens dozens of sexual offences, has been been jailed for 18 years in prison. prison. vincent chan's youngest victim victim was two. his oldest was in in her 70s. the metropolitan police police has called the case one of of the most harrowing and complex complex which the force has undertaken. undertaken. we've just been hearing hearing from judge john casey delivering delivering the sentencing.